


Jump In

by KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)



Series: Fluff Bingo [18]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Danger, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Humor, I'm Your Dad Now, Rescue, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Trans Female Character, a side dash of powers-ish mayhem, more of this nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: Kaimana's day keeps getting better and better. After successfully finding and rescuing a missing girl, he turns around only to find out that A.) apparently said girl has telepathic powers and B.) her brother who hired him isn't answering his damn phone, which probably doesn't mean anything good.Great. Just great.
Series: Fluff Bingo [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655521
Kudos: 2
Collections: Writing Squad Fluff Bingo





	Jump In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoominQuartz (IceCreAMS)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/gifts).



The kid isn’t picking up his damn phone, which is, perhaps, the one thing that ticks Kaimana Lee off more than anything else that has happened this wild whirlwind of a day. He still doesn’t know what to do about the other one strapped to the seat behind him, watching him in the rearview mirror with round brown eyes. The one with the intangible **Too Loud Too Loud Too Loud** that insistently presses against his skull. He wishes he could shut it out, shut her up, but even _he_ isn’t cruel enough to stick those damn yellow earmuffs back on after everything.

“Hey! Could you shut off your thoughts for like, one second?” he asks her, shifting his gaze up to the rearview mirror. The back of his white-knuckled hand, clenched around the body of his navy flip phone, bangs against the fake leather of his steering wheel. 

Nayden presses her lips together. She tilts her head. She seems amused, which is just _great._ At least there’s one person getting a kick out of this nightmare.

**Not good?**

“Not good,” he rumbles and jams his thumb onto the call button for the thirteenth time. He pulls the phone up to his ear.

A red light. Great.

The car screeches to a stop.

 _C’mon, Boaz._ He grunts as the call goes to voicemail again. Fourteenth try’s the charm, right? _Why the hell aren’t you answering me, kid? I’ve got your sister. What more are you going to put me through?_

Two hands latch onto his shoulders immediately. Kaimana’s thoughts _burst_ with warmth and joy and at the same time, worry--all not his own. He almost bites his tongue in the surprise, hissing and sorely wondering why the hell he thought it was a good idea to buckle the telepathic girl into the seat _behind him_. 

“Bo sent you!” she cries in his head and ears.

“Fuck!” 

Green light. The car wheels screech from how hard Kaimana shoves his foot onto the pedal. He thought who hired him was obvious, but maybe it isn’t. 

There’s another thought that rides in on the coattails of the other sensations pushing into his mind, a soft and grief-ridden: **Then Dad didn’t.**

“Course not,” Kaimana mumbles under his breath. He glances up in the rearview mirror the same instant he gives up on trying to get a hold of the other Diggory kid. After snapping his flip-phone shut, he tosses it into the seat next to him and takes a turn. Change of plans. “You as smart as your brother, kid?”

**Probably not.**

“Do you know what Boaz knows?”

It’s strange, the way you can suddenly be made to feel like a photo album. A page flips inside his own head, memories postmarked like printed 4x6’s, framed in transparent plastic sleeves to gleam up whatever answers someone’s searching for. There’s a few more flips until the right image and memory is found: the one where he first met Boaz in the cornflower blue office, old and dusty and poorly decorated because when the hell does someone like Kaimana Lee ever have time or money for actual decorating?

**Oh.**

That single word--is it even really a word?--presses with it so many other sad feelings, too. Something bitter, almost acidic on his tongue. Disappointment? Is that what he tastes?

**I had hoped…**

So Boaz _was_ the smarter of the two.

Another red light. This time, their stop is much more natural and easy. Kaimana lifts his gaze to the rearview mirror again. The fake leather of the steering wheel whines under the tight squeeze of his hands. “Mind explainin’ how the hell he knew it was your father in the first place?”

An image is passed over in return: a flash of the strange, obnoxious yellow earmuffs. The sensory press of them over his--her?--ears, and the dead silence of the world that followed.

No outside thoughts.

Just her own.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, um,” Nayden mutters like a confession. “Dad’s been careful ever since they…woke up? I guess you’d call it? No one else knows about our abilities outside of the family.” There’s an uncertain, iffy: **I think, anyway,** but Kaimana ignores it because now, ahead of him, there’s a much larger and much more important question.

_Now what?_

Kaimana wishes he had a toothpick to chew on as he racked his brain. There had to be a way to get out of this mess; what was the right thing to do here? Was it just to heedlessly jump in? How else was he supposed to extricate himself from the ugly situation of two superpowered kids that had a cruel enough father to stage their own kidnapping and ransom? 

What was even the _point_ of that? Where would the one million dollars have gone, huh? Back in his own fucking pocket?

“The audit.” 

Kaimana’s eyes jerk up in time to catch both the green light and the matter-of-fact look on Nayden’s face as she stares at him in the rearview mirror. “Excuse me?”

“Dad was worried about an upcoming audit before I got kidnapped.”

Nayden says it so simply, as if it is supposed to line up perfectly with all the other pieces floating around in this giant mess of a jigsaw puzzle.

“What the hell does that mean?” Kaimana curses and shakes his head. He turns to take the ramp. “Never mind. One thing at a time. Kid, you’re good with this whole mind…conversing…speaking…thing, right?” 

How the hell is he so chill with this, anyway? Sometimes, Kaimana surprises himself.

**Of a sort, yeah.**

“Think you can tell me how to get to your house?”

There's a flit of surprised joy. Cloudy, airy, and light. Golden. And **You’re taking me home?** only to be quickly counteracted by Kaimana’s own grim premonition that there isn’t most likely a good reason why her brother isn’t answering his cell phone. In fact, it's probably very bad. 

**If we’re going southbound on I-49, then…**

The route sears itself into his mind. Clean and clear and precise. 

“Got it,” Kaimana grumbles and shoves his foot onto the accelerator.

**Author's Note:**

> gee, kaimana. go easy on your car.
> 
> anyway yeah i’m back with my uh “I’m Your Dad Now” modern-day AU of my own OC’s laksjdf I hope you enjoy these shenanigans? 
> 
> this is a companion piece to [“Temblor,”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241492) which I did a bad things happen bingo prompt with “hostage video” so consider this the, uh, sequel? maybe there will be a third one and we can see if Boaz is all right? he did put himself in danger after daring to pull in an outside person to save his sister... :3c
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed!


End file.
